Before the Burn
by Red Clay
Summary: Before his tempestuous adventure with Azula, Qilaq was a soldier in the Great War. Stranded in the desert, he and his compatriots navigate the wastes and face Stygian apparitions and learn what it truly means to "fight" demons.


And here I thought I was done with this tale. Oh well, maybe now I can move on.

I don't think people truly understand what it means to 'fight' Demons. I apologize for the violence of this piece - in fact, I was a bit reluctant to post it - but it's an excruciating exercise that I'm rather proud I got through. Not really proud of the content, but the process was a challenge, so it helped me grow as a writer.

This piece connects with the canon of Ardent Flame, but it can stand alone if it needs to. It's my first attempt at what I consider "horror," though it does not run the gamut of hacky-slashy-stephen-kingy kind of horror. It's distressing in a different way.

An acknowledgment to OmniSchreiber for the use of his desert deity, Fei Hyo. If you haven't read OS's _Spinning Whispers_ epic, based in the AtLA universe, you should probably get on that.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I really don't like Qilaq all that much. I sympathize with his plight, but only from a literary standpoint.

There's a block section that you may want to skip. You'll know it when you see it and you can just move to the next section if you want, or challenge yourself. Whatever.

**Before the Burn**

Five hapless souls sluggishly humped over the yawning dunes, their feet sucking and sinking in the fine, burnt-sienna sand. At the head of the slogging file of men and women was a heartily tanned man with a severe squint, wrapped from head to foot in loose layers of dingy grey cloth and bearded up to his hazel eyeballs. He moved much more smoothly through the shifting terrain than his followers, due in part to the brass pommeled staff he carried, but chiefly because the desert was his home.

"This is the Si Wong _desert_. Why is it so cold at night?" complained the young woman in the middle of the clumsy procession, layered in bronze-trimmed, green leather armor.

"You asked that last night, Nuan," said the blue robed northerner who trudged just behind their bearded leader.

"Because it's still cold and it's still ridiculous," she snipped, rubbing her biceps and scrunching up her alabaster nose, now burnt and stinging even more in the frigid night air.

The similarly dressed youth behind her answered as he yanked his gauss-socked foot out of a sink hole. "I remember learnin' that it's the trees and such that keep the heat in. No trees means that all the warm goes up and away."

"_You_ said that two days ago, Lim," reported the northerner, his tone unchanged.

"I did?"

"Yep."

"Jeez, this must be what it feels like to live at the North Pole," the whining woman continued, shaking sand from her greasy black locks.

"Actually, Nuan, the Pole's a lot colder than this," chirped the mahogany woman at the back of the line, a cough punctuating her statement, "but there's more insulation: clouds, snow, ice. Like Lim said, there's nothing here to keep the heat down… or up, whatever."

"So it's _colder_ _here_ than the North Pole!"

"Well, it's a different kind of cold and there's shelter and warm furs… I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's more working in people's favor up there."

Nuan spun around and backpedaled through the shifty surface so she could face her uncharacteristically cheery friend. "So what you're basically saying, Anana, is that this place blows," she glibly remarked, holding her outstretched hand over the dune-lumped panorama. A biting breeze kicked up some sand and stung her flushed cheeks further.

"Don't say that," laughed the winded younger woman in response. "You might just conjure a sandstorm."

"That would be unfortunate," uttered the leading man in his placid yet simultaneously ascetic tone. "We cannot afford anymore delays."

"You said it was gonna to take days to get through the desert on foot, right Rona?" queried Lim.

"That is what I said," breathed the grey clothed man, mildly irritated to hear his name slurred in such a curt manner.

"Yeah, and it's been _days_ since our sand-sailor got wrecked and I know it was my fault, though I'm telling ya, it was built like a turtledove nest in a-"

"Just shut _up_ about that. No one is _blaming_ you," the swarthy northerner snapped. If anyone did hold Lim accountable, they didn't voice their grievances, and none of them would now that it meant contradicting Qilaq.

"Anyway, we've been walking for _days_, so why haven't we made it out of here yet?"

"Do not despair, brother Lim. Fei Hyo will provide," assured the desert deity's faithful follower.

"Do you even know where you're going?"

"Of course. Out of the desert."

"Well that's a holy useless answer," sniggered the peach-faced Lim. Nuan and Anana giggled lightly as well.

"We're out of water." Qilaq said flatly.

At those words, everyone's faces drooped, knowing that even the weaponized water in her fur pouch had been drunk dry. Not only was she defenseless in this arid emptiness, she was still thirsty, very thirsty.

"As I said," their dust veneered guide calmly intoned, "Fei Hyo will provide. With Her unknowable guidance, we will safely traverse the wastes of Her realm."

"I'd rather _know_ the way out of this sand trap."

"That's what it is. It's a trap!" Lim shouted. "The sand priest is workin' for the Fire Nation, draggin' us through the desert until we're all dead!"

Everyone stopped simultaneously and their eyes turned to the raucous teen, who blushed under the stoic (or perhaps just baffled) attention.

"Has the heat fried your yoke, Lim?" the swarthy northerner finally chortled.

"Too cold for that, right now," mumbled Nuan inaudibly.

"Naw, I'm just tryin' to brighten the mood."

"Well, mission accomplished," said Qilaq with an eastward glower. "The sun's coming up. Now it's a suntrap, too."

The moon's serene character was being burned away at an almost imperceptible rate, and now the citrine sun charged over the rosy gold horizon, turning the crepuscular grey world back into a vivid swathe of… monochromatic tan, in various shades and shadows. And there above was a heaven hung void of shadow veiled cerulean, free from even the tiniest cloudy blemish. Blue and gold. Nothing more, save for the color that the five dejected travelers brought with them.

Roh-na felt the hope of survival cremating in the morning radiance, but he couldn't show his dismay in front of his unlikely flock. He turned to them and, as brightly as his nigh impassive demeanor would allow, said, "We should continue on while it's still cool. We'll rest when the heat rises."

They marched on and were soon sizzling in their sweat-soaked skins. Nuan thought to strip off her armor and shirt and ditch them, but Qilaq reminded her of the violent encounters she was likely to participate in, in the near future. Lim facetiously added how it would be cold again when the sun went down, to which Nuan pawed a bit of sand at the youth behind her. She considered dragging the olive uniform behind her, but Roh-na illustrated how extremely deep her exposed flesh would be burned, so she just endured the slimy dampness. As the morning heated up, her perspiration began to lessen, which, though more comfortable, did not bode well.

As promised, the fatigued troupe collapsed to the ground well before high-sun. Anana pulled her sweaty, gritty boots off and plopped on her back, not caring about all the sand begriming the tight knot that rolled her nearly waist-length tresses securely at the back of her head. Nuan and Lim had no boots to shed, but the three of them took their thin shoulder plates off and used them as to cover their faces, as they had learned to do over the course of their trek. Anana's tawny complexion didn't burn as readily as her like-uniformed companions' but, given ample exposure, it too would singe.

Roh-na, the haphazardly cloaked desert priest, just pulled up the stained cloth shielding his mouth to cover his eyes and soil-tanned face. Qilaq, the darkest of them all, was the last to lie down to sleep. He was too busy staring glumly into an empty canvas sack. He threw the floppy fabric aside. The last of their supplies were gone. Some godly guidance, known or not, would certainly be appreciated. His coffee visage turned up and glowered once more at the white hot orb as it floated across the surface of the depthless azure ocean that squeezed the parched land beneath its insurmountable sprawl.

* * *

"We'll it's liquid, whatever it is." Anana delicately uncorked the leather bladder that hung down at their still snoozing guide's waist and slid herself back a bit.

"He was holdin' out on us," Lim quietly hissed. The covert young woman turned to Lim and put a slender finger to her lips.

Following that, she waved her arm in a smooth arc and the cloudy liquid in the priest's waterskin slowly flowed up into the hard orange evening twilight. The prismatic fluid percolated before splitting into four equally voluminous globs.

"Everyone gets a swallow," whispered the still gently gesturing Anana. Each glob hovered slowly into slurping range for her thirsty comrades, but one was missing. "Qilaq?" she wondered, turning to find her dark hued friend sitting with his hunched back to the rest of the group.

"Oh no," he said with an emphatic shake of his rain-cloud dreadlocks. "I don't need any of _that_ stuff."

"Yes, you do. You have to drink something. Now, open up or I'll bend it up your nose."

"I said I'm fine, An_Ahgh!_" he gargled as the milky fluid streamed between his parted lips and down his throat.

The commotion roused the desert priest and when he saw his bladder open and nearly empty, he waxed into a subdued ferocity. "What are you doing? That is the holy broth of Fei Hyo. How dare you, you water witch."

"Hey! Watch it, priest, or I'll make you holier-than-thou!… art… now…" Lim threatened clumsily. One of the bearded priests bushy brown eyebrows quirked.

Qilaq smirked and turned a sidelong glance on their confused desert guide. "He means he's going to skewer you, Master Roh-na, and I don't think we'd object. He is Lim the Impaler, after all." Lim growled. He didn't appreciate his battlefield alias.

"So you'd kill me and _damn_ yourselves to the desert's maw?" retorted Roh-na.

"It seems that's already happened." The holy man bristled in response before Qilaq held out a placatory hand. "Look, just watch your mouth."

Roh-na took note of the three sets of angry eyes trained on his exposed countenance and let out a decidedly calming breath. "I do apologize for the slur, but you should watch _your_ mouth's as well. This nectar is not for quenching one's thirst."

"Then what's it for?" the defensive impaler gibed.

"Other things." With that, he capped his nearly empty bladder of esoteric ambrosia.

"Yes, well, let's soldier on, guys," prompted Qilaq as he wiped the scum from his chapped lips. "Lead on, sir."

At that, Roh-na grabbed up his club-ended staff and strode into the shifting wastes with the four soldiers trailing close behind.

After a short while, Nuan asked to stop so that she could tighten the swaddles that acted as makeshift socks for her tough but burnable, bare feet. Lim did the same, but before the two rose from their respite, Anana spotted some small, but steady movement in the dusky distance.

"What the…" was all she could say before Nuan noticed the distant object as well.

"Somebody's coming! Hello!" Nuan called as she jumped to her feet and waved her lithe arm at full extension.

"Hey," Anana yelled through cupped hands. It was all the exertion she could muster. Otherwise, she would have jumped for joy, as well. Someone alone in the desert surely knew how to survive. Maybe they had water!

"What?" said Roh-na, scrutinizing the vacant distance. "I see no one, child? No one is… oh…" The haggardly shrouded eremite fondled for his nectar bladder, then, finding it, pulled the cork with his teeth, spit it away, and tipped his head back to chug the remainder of his holy broth. Following that, he strode forward a few steps and then drew his stiff form to its most bombastic measure. Defiantly striking the foot of his rod into the desert, he blustered, "Stand back. Leave this apparition to me."

"Appar-what?" Lim clucked.

Anana was confused too. "What are you talking about? It's just a…" As she spoke, the distant dot sped toward them, floating over the dunes at impossible speed, without disturbing so much as a grain of sand.

Like black air, the approaching shadow blew formlessly to the left and billowed back into shape before wafting right like snaking obsidian tresses streaked with scarlet. The mass finally stopped and solidified a few steps in front of the stalwart desert priest, yet still appearing as though it were on the horizon's edge. It was a hump of darkness that bled crimson upward over its surface and wavered like translucent heat emanating from a roiling flame.

The holy man showed no fear in the fading orange shine of sunset. "I am Roh-na, disciple of the Magnificent Fei Hyo! By Her glorious light, I expel you, _fell spirit_!"

A flash of slime dripping from a bulging knot organ; sharp brown-haired, segmented, arachnid legs; fangs of polished coal scimitars; ruby cherry eyeballs, putrefied with wrinkled grey skins; scent like excrement mash, painting on the palate, coating the throat.

The five travelers seized and recoiled in wide-eyed horror.

Roh-na tripped and fell onto his back, gagged, and wretched into the cooling desert sands. "Merciful… Fei…" he sputtered between heaves.

"God's jaws, indeed," muttered Qilaq as he sidled between his fear frozen friends and helped the shuddering disciple to his feet. "You can't be short with Demons. Be cross and they will cross you." Roh-na almost fell over again as the black wisp caressed the northerner's back with crimson tendril. Qilaq shivered slightly, but remained calm and turned to face the inky darkness. "You must treat them properly."

In a blink, the indefinite blotch morphed into an elegant man with short, sable locks and clothed in a finely pressed, black Zhiduo, trimmed with beige swirls that swam across the silken surface like smoke.

Qilaq smiled artfully and the new form smiled in kind before it sweetly spoke.

"Skin-sacks full of uncut cutlets. Pouches of sloshing, sanguine syrup. Do I know your stench?" Every "S" he uttered slid like snake spit from his tongue.

"I do not know, Respected One."

"'Fell One' will do nicely," it said with the air of a proper aristocrat. "I am no pompous God. I work for a living." It licked its luscious pink lips. "So distinct. The taste… of… Ataninnuaq." The smell of cedar followed that word out of the handsome humanoid's mouth. All present were treated to this new scent and felt a mild ease seep through their tense muscles. "Yes," the dapper Demon hissed, "that is who you are."

"His son: Qilaq," said the dusky man with a cordial bow of his head.

"Ah, 'son.' A little human half-soul, then? Too, bad, really, how you little sausages split the good stuff apart, dilute it in your, hahh… coupling." Now the demon's breath was rank with a sharp musk that Qilaq recognized. He checked his friend's faces to confirm his suspicions. They flushed further as the pungent aroma accosted their nostrils.

Qilaq brought his dried, leathery face a hair's breadth away from the august being's fine nose. "I know who you are, now," he smiled, much to the creatures pique.

"Do you?" the suave thing dripped with a quiver. "Doyoureally?" It skirled menacingly as it plunged its spindly white hands through Qilaq's ocean blue robes like paper and up into his stomach as though it were made of gelatin. The dreadlocked man tensed and his friends let choked and terrified sounds escape their throats. "WellthenwhatareyouAHHGh!" The decadent form blurred for a second and appeared as though it was trying and failing to withdraw its hands from swarthy man's belly.

Now Qilaq was the one dripping with malice. "Did you forget which sphere you were on, Fell One?" He gripped the Demon's face gently as its glamour phased on and off and pressed his cracked lips against the creature's airy maw. The kiss caused the apparition to convulse and melt into a florid fog. Qilaq then slurped the inky substance up and let out a satisfied gasp before he spun on a heel and trudged away from the stunned onlookers.

Anana's eyes rolled back into her head and she limply fell into the soft sand, Lim immediately attended to the fallen young woman, taking her head in his arms and tapping her cheek in an attempt to rouse her from her swoon. The priest dropped his bronze trimmed staff and fell to his knees with a blank look of utter astonishment. It was only Nuan who noticed Qilaq was leaving them behind. She moved to follow, but before she could place one foot in front of the other, the hunched northerner threw out a clawed hand.

"_Stay there!_" he commanded without even turning. His roar almost echoed across the soundless sea of sand. Nuan froze and they all watched the dark man withdraw his talon to his side and continue alone into the empty wastes.

* * *

The long-dead sun left the moon to cast her indigo pall over the barren mounds of shadowy grains. The outline around Qilaq's form seemed to thicken with an almost imperceptible darkness that surrounded him but in no way obscured him: a black halo against the background of existence.

"You should have stayed in your sacred scarlet realm," he said while stripping his deep-sea-blue clothes off. "For here, your 'fell' corporal is a mere perfume of abstraction: little more than patchouli silk to the hard and cold and shocked body of mortality. Here, you… can be meditated into oblivion." He slid down the side of a dune and walked a little farther before he slumped to his knees, crossed his bare legs and hunched forward.

"You know what? What? Cold water. A monsoon would do nicely, about now. The sea. I want to swim in the sea again. Sink beneath bracing waves and sheets of ice and be safe from the burning earth. Serene. A wish. Nothing more than a wish. Wishing does not chase away the… a… anathemas…? You know what? What?"

* * *

Lim looked up from tending to the still unconscious Anana when he heard the soft thud of leather falling to the ground. Nuan had shed her olive armor and shirt and wore nothing but her white tank top and forest green pants. "I'm going out to see how he's doing," she declared as certain as a sandstorm in spring.

"Qilaq said to stay here," Lim said with very little force.

"He's been gone too long."

"Come on, Nuan. He can take care of… uh, _it_ himself. He doesn't need our help."

"Need it or not, he's getting mine." With that, Nuan set off after Qilaq's tracks at a brisk walk.

"Nuan. Damn stubborn…" he mumbled as his friend briskly marched away. The red-faced youth turned to the priest who was sitting cross-legged in the sand near the unconscious Anana with his club-tipped staff standing erect in the sand beside him. "Stay and watch Anana and if you feel her up while she's out, I swear, I'll use your face to show you how I got my nickname."

Of course the thought would never even blink in his mind; however, the grizzled man could only nod in response to the severe visage glaring at him. After a tense moment, Lim spun on a heel and trudged after his stubborn friend.

When the two were out of sight, Roh-na ventured a cathartic commentary. "Such violent young people."

* * *

The fine grains of pulverized rock coalesced and solidified under every one of Nuan's determined footsteps, allowing her to travel across the desert as though it were freshly paved in granite. Lim followed suit, constantly badgering her to turn back, but to no avail.

After a long walk over purple tinted sands, they stopped at the peak of a dune and found a trail of strewn blue clothing. Looking up from what appeared to be _all _of Qilaq's clothes, they saw, ahead, a squat dark form, sitting motionless. Nuan glided down the hillside and Lim reluctantly followed. The got closer. The blue form didn't move. Closer. No movement. Closer still. Still no movement. A twitch. Both their hearts skipped at the inhuman stir.

"Did I not say for you to stay away?" said Qilaq rising as though being pulled up by a noose. "Or do you want me to slit your loins like taught-skinned grapes, splay them, let sticky-sweet juices run in rivulets down your thighs?"

"Uh…" Lim blanched.

"Qilaq?" Nuan choked.

The dark man pirouetted and glared at his friends with a bestial depravity, the slight light of the silver celestial body casting a patchwork of shadows into his deeper features. He let out a guttural breath. Lim stepped in front of Nuan and Qilaq leapt like a lightning bolt, pouncing on the thin youth and planting a wet kiss on him. Nuan's face stretched about as wide as it could and the prone teen was just as dumbfounded under the full weight of a naked man. A rough hand caressed its way down to… Lim threw a wide right-hook trailed by a stream of sand that pealed from the coarse, granulated ground, and rammed it into the slurping Qilaq with enough force to send him skipping across the desert into a nearby dune.

Lim spit out sand and other unwanted substances as the dust cleared to reveal the nude northerner, rising with the cloud.

"You, too, sand priest!" Qilaq screamed without looking up to the crest of the hill where his vestments lay and Roh-na frightfully observed the scene. "Think your benevolent desert deity here to save your soul?"

The eremite summoned enough courage to speak out against the demonic voice. "Fei Hyo is ever-present-"

"In his home, but his manor is far from here. In this world, he is a coo of baby's breath, while here and now, on this barren patch of Malkuth, this Lust is _real_."

"Lust?"

"Go watch Anana, Lim," Nuan intoned evenly. "Go on. Both of you.

"What?" the youth responded, flabbergasted. "Qilaq's gone coconuts and you're-"

"Go take care of Anana! She needs you. I'll take care of Qilaq." Lim fought the indecision jostling inside of him, finally concluding that, if Roh-na was over there, Anana was unconscious and alone. He needed to protect her, now. Anyway, Nuan could handle herself, he hoped. Both Lim and the bearded priest shuffled off and left the drawn up young woman alone with her confounded and naked friend.

Qilaq stopped at arms length from the unflinching woman, trembling though she was. "You saved me from my demon. Now, I'm here for you."

"Oh, you sweet, wan jezebel. Rescue by way of carnal sacrifice. Phenomenal stupidity." With that spiteful declaration the naked northerner wrapped his sadistic grip around the young woman's supple throat. She didn't fight it.

* * *

There is no silence deeper than regret: inexpressible vacancy like the blank span of the rolling desert dunes, stained by the glow of heavenly bodies. Why can't things be undone? What would it take to pull back the sun or the moon and speak to innocence with wise words? What balance is worth the hard, cold shock of mortal reality? Well, it is important - life - whatever it's trying to teach us.

Before Nuan roused from her blackout, Qilaq licked his hand and managed to wipe away the marks he had etched and pounded into her during their violent throes. The torn shirt couldn't be fixed, but he still redressed her and covered her with his robe, remembering how much she hates the cold. It was a cold night, but a glow started to resonate at the fringe of the world. Dawn was coming. It was no comfort to the swarthy man who sat hunched, still naked from his neck to his waist. He mustered enough courage to look over at his comatose friend.

Words were even harder, like squeezing whispers into mountains. "Why did you let me do that to you? Dammit, Nuan. I'm so sorry. I don't think… I can ever thank you… _thank you_? What am I saying? I… I can't… I'm sorry." Tears wouldn't come, no matter the depth of his despair. He had no tears left in him.

"What happened?" Nuan croaked, willing her stiff muscles into motion.

"What happened?" Qilaq asked with disbelief. What happened? _What happened?_

"Is there an echo out here?" The young brunette sat up and rubbed the sand from her eyes. "I must've dozed off."

"You… you waited here while I sent the Demon over to the other side. Must've fallen asleep while I was working," he responded amusedly, dropping into the lie as easy as falling down.

"Oh, that's what… what happened to my shirt!" she squealed.

"I told you to stay away, but you just had to come over."

"You ripped my shirt?"

"I'm sorry. I was a little _off._"

"'Off' and so you tore my… darn it, now I have to walk through the rest of the desert with half my chest hanging out."

"You'll be cooler at least. Hey, pffthegh…" Qilaq sputtered as his friend splashed sand all over him. "Bleck… I'm sure Anana can sow it back up for you: a quick patch job."

"So, you… did what you needed to do?"

"Yep."

* * *

Slivers of light came off the cresting sun and dug into Lim's squinting face. "Man, my head… what was in that stuff," he asked Roh-na who was gazing into the rising light.

He responded with a melancholic sturdiness. "I told you. It's Fei Hyo's holy nectar."

"Nectar of the Gods, huh? Strong stuff." Lim brushed a hair from the still unconscious Anana's bright henna face. A movement whirled in his periphery. "Oh your God," he said, slack jawed as he looked up to see a sand-sailor in the distance gliding toward them.

"Yes indeed," said the holy man of the desert, with the faintest wrinkle of a smile beneath his bushy beard.

* * *

Qilaq crested the dune with Nuan at his side, hanging from his sturdy, burnished shoulders. She was still groggy, so he had offered to carry her, though her pride only let him support her. As they stopped to beam at the impending rescue, their gazes drew together, magnetically, and their eyes met: his, deep, unyielding cobalt and hers, leaf-green, flecked with pyrite, though slightly dulled.

Nuan grinned at Qilaq weakly. He couldn't stand to let her see him mask his phenomenal lament, so he turned away. She bit her lip. She just wanted to forget the desert. They both did.


End file.
